Wireless Business Forecast articles from December 2004

Wireless Business Forecast archives from December 2004

Why Wireless Consumer Perplexity Damages Brands, Bottom Lines.
December 2, 2004... The level of confusion over wireless plans, billing and coverage is so deep among consumers that it is driving high churn rates and, thus, costing the major competitors in the field as much as $3 billion, says branding consultancy Siegel &...

Case Study: Maintaining Wireless Services During Hurricane Season.
December 2, 2004... Remember these names: Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne? This is not a school roll call, but, rather, the names of four of the most devastating hurricanes to strike Florida in more than a century. In fewer than six weeks, the hurricanes' deadly...

Nintendo DS Opens New Wireless Market.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... In the space of a week, the universe of wireless device owners expanded by more than two million as Nintendo launched its dual-screen DS handheld gaming console in the United States last week. The model already had sold two million units in a...

Content Use: Build It And They Will Come.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... While only a small percentage of all cellphone owners make use of the growing slate of multimedia entertainment available on their handsets, those who can take and trade pictures, play games, and download other media do so at a rate that should...

Verizon Gets A Black Eye In Philly.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... No one ever accused Philadelphia of being a soft town, and Verizon is getting its lumps this week from lawmakers accusing the company of trying to limit local competition and obstruct an ambitious plan to bring Wi-Fi broadband connectivity to...

Many Broadcast Newbies Nab FCC's 258 FM Construction Permits.
December 2, 2004... In what the FCC is calling an "unprecedented" auction of 258 FM construction permits to 110 winning bidders, Chairman Michael Powell said the nearly three-week process had succeeded in bringing in many first-time broadcasters and locales that...

Deal Sheet.
December 2, 2004... Who's Doing What?: Digital Bridges [privately held], headquartered in London; 011 44 (0) 207 901 1760 Garnered $18 million in third- round funding from Apax Partners [privately held], headquartered in New York City; 212/753-6300 And Argo...

And The Brands Rush In: The Next Revenue Frontier.(Wireless telecommunications )
December 16, 2004... In a wild flurry of announcements over the past few weeks, major media have lined up to secure places on phone decks in an effort to make mobile data services look a lot like the Web, the newsstand, and even your cable TV grid. To wit, just in...

Why Cheaper And Faster WiMAX Will Force Convergence.(wireless technology)
December 16, 2004... The business case for the WiMAX (IEEE 802.16) approach to wireless broadband is so compelling that the platform is destined to challenge not only 3G mobile networks but even land-based DSL and cable broadband. Amid a flurry of major deals...

Company Profile: SNAPin's Automated Help Software Targets Bloated Support Costs.(Company Profile)
December 16, 2004... Every time a customer dials a 611 service call on their cellphones, the meter starts running on a carrier's margins for that client. "When you talk to a live operator, it costs the mobile operator about $6 a minute," says Tom Trinneer, vice...

Darn, We Liked The Name Sprextel.(Nextel Partners Inc. merges with Sprint Corp.)
December 16, 2004... Despite some rumored saber rattling by ILEC Verizon, which has been pulling every marketing trick it can think of out of its hat to regain wireless market share post-Cingular/AT&T Wireless, the next big thing on the competitive horizon will be...

Replacing The Smoking Section With a Yakking Section.(Federal Communications Commission's revised rules)
December 16, 2004... At this week's open Federal Communications Commission meeting, commissioners addressed an idea whose time has come: the lifting of the prohibition on any transmitting devices on commercial aircraft. In a revision of its rules (and those imposed...

PC Magazine Poll: Verizon Dominated with Consumers.(Verizon Communications Inc.)(Brief Article)
December 16, 2004... In its annual poll of consumers on their brand preference, Ziff-Davis's PC Magazine found that Verizon pulls ahead of the wireless provider pack in most categories among users. Its 7.4 overall rating (on a scale of 1 to 10) was significantly...

BlackBerry Takes A Larger Piece Of The 2004 Pie.(wireless e-mail is stunning on its own)
December 16, 2004... As both Palm and Microsoft struggle to move into the wireless arena with new ways of hybridizing phone and PDAs, the real under-sung success story this year continues to be the BlackBerry platform. Research in Motion, maker of the popular...

Where Do Wireless Users Surf? Yahoo, Of Course, and SMS.ac (??).
December 16, 2004... As if to underscore the potential power of Yahoo! in the mobile space (see Deals in this issue), the Yahoo! Mobile Web page is the most popular destination among surfers for mobile-phone entertainment, according to online metrics firm Hitwise....

Deal Sheet.(mergers and acquisitions)(WUF Networks Inc., Sierra Tel Communications Group, m-Qube Inc.)
December 16, 2004... Who's Doing What?: Yahoo! Inc. [YHOO], headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.; 408/349-3300 Quietly acquired WUF Networks Inc., headquartered in Redwood City, Calif.; no contact information available because corporate Web site was disabled when...